© 2024 Ideastream Public Media

1375 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44115
(216) 916-6100 | (877) 399-3307

WKSU is a public media service licensed to Kent State University and operated by Ideastream Public Media.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Weather-Related Closings and Delays
News
To contact us with news tips, story ideas or other related information, e-mail newsstaff@ideastream.org.

Cleveland Artist in Top British Exhibition

Frank Oriti's "Clarity" was picked to be part of the prestigious National Portrait Gallery exhibition

A Northeast Ohio artist is part of a prestigious exhibition that opened this week in London.  A painting by Frank Oriti was chosen from hundreds of entrants to this year's National Portrait Gallery show.  The piece shows a profile of a Cleveland-area man who is covered with tattoos. 

"I had seen him around town," says Oriti,  "and I messaged him and I said I'd love to paint your portrait."

That painting now hangs in a London gallery as part of an annual exhibition of the world’s finest portraits.  Frank Oriti is one of only nine American artists chosen to be in this year's exhibition.  He titled his piece, "Clarity" --- that's one of the words that is tattooed on the side of his subject's shaved head.  He says it's part of a series of blue-collar people he's painted over the past five years. 

"I've focused my work on the look and the attitude and the toughness of what it takes to thrive and survive in a place like Cleveland." 

Visitors to the National Gallery will get a chance to have this insider's view of Cleveland through mid-September. 

 

David C. Barnett was a senior arts & culture reporter for Ideastream Public Media. He retired in October 2022.